WEBVTT

00:00:00.785 --> 00:00:02.665
What if I could present you a story

00:00:02.689 --> 00:00:05.103
that you would remember
with your entire body

00:00:05.127 --> 00:00:07.284
and not just with your mind?

00:00:07.308 --> 00:00:09.983
My whole life as a journalist,
I've really been compelled

00:00:10.007 --> 00:00:12.318
to try to make stories
that can make a difference

00:00:12.342 --> 00:00:14.912
and maybe inspire people to care.

00:00:14.936 --> 00:00:17.262
I've worked in print.
I've worked in documentary.

00:00:17.286 --> 00:00:18.555
I've worked in broadcast.

00:00:18.579 --> 00:00:21.641
But it really wasn't until
I got involved with virtual reality

00:00:21.665 --> 00:00:24.506
that I started seeing
these really intense,

00:00:24.530 --> 00:00:26.514
authentic reactions from people

00:00:26.538 --> 00:00:28.213
that really blew my mind.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:28.237 --> 00:00:32.910
So the deal is that with VR,
virtual reality,

00:00:32.934 --> 00:00:35.934
I can put you on scene

00:00:35.958 --> 00:00:37.759
in the middle of the story.

00:00:38.148 --> 00:00:41.632
By putting on these goggles
that track wherever you look,

00:00:41.656 --> 00:00:44.584
you get this whole-body sensation,

00:00:44.608 --> 00:00:46.815
like you're actually, like, there.

00:00:47.209 --> 00:00:50.611
So five years ago was about when
I really began to push the envelope

00:00:50.635 --> 00:00:53.885
with using virtual reality
and journalism together.

00:00:53.909 --> 00:00:56.457
And I wanted to do a piece about hunger.

00:00:56.481 --> 00:00:59.640
Families in America are going hungry,
food banks are overwhelmed,

00:00:59.664 --> 00:01:01.719
and they're often running out of food.

00:01:02.330 --> 00:01:05.949
Now, I knew I couldn't
make people feel hungry,

00:01:05.973 --> 00:01:09.790
but maybe I could figure out a way
to get them to feel something physical.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:10.726 --> 00:01:13.790
So -- again, this is five years ago --

00:01:13.814 --> 00:01:16.990
so doing journalism
and virtual reality together

00:01:17.014 --> 00:01:19.997
was considered
a worse-than-half-baked idea,

00:01:20.021 --> 00:01:21.376
and I had no funding.

00:01:21.400 --> 00:01:23.899
Believe me, I had a lot
of colleagues laughing at me.

00:01:23.923 --> 00:01:27.713
And I did, though,
have a really great intern,

00:01:27.737 --> 00:01:29.975
a woman named Michaela Kobsa-Mark.

00:01:29.999 --> 00:01:31.817
And together we went out to food banks

00:01:31.841 --> 00:01:34.913
and started recording
audio and photographs.

00:01:34.937 --> 00:01:36.857
Until one day she came back to my office

00:01:36.881 --> 00:01:39.276
and she was bawling, she was just crying.

00:01:39.300 --> 00:01:41.902
She had been on scene at a long line,

00:01:41.926 --> 00:01:45.871
where the woman running the line
was feeling extremely overwhelmed,

00:01:45.895 --> 00:01:48.863
and she was screaming,
"There's too many people!

00:01:48.887 --> 00:01:50.783
There's too many people!"

00:01:50.807 --> 00:01:54.362
And this man with diabetes
doesn't get food in time,

00:01:54.386 --> 00:01:57.941
his blood sugar drops too low,
and he collapses into a coma.

00:01:58.695 --> 00:02:00.227
As soon as I heard that audio,

00:02:00.251 --> 00:02:03.496
I knew that this would be
the kind of evocative piece

00:02:03.520 --> 00:02:06.624
that could really describe
what was going on at food banks.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:07.290 --> 00:02:10.906
So here's the real line.
You can see how long it was, right?

00:02:10.930 --> 00:02:13.557
And again, as I said, we didn't
have very much funding,

00:02:13.581 --> 00:02:17.331
so I had to reproduce it
with virtual humans that were donated,

00:02:17.355 --> 00:02:21.481
and people begged and borrowed favors
to help me create the models

00:02:21.505 --> 00:02:23.664
and make things as accurate as we could.

00:02:23.688 --> 00:02:26.297
And then we tried to convey
what happened that day

00:02:26.321 --> 00:02:29.115
with as much as accuracy as is possible.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:29.680 --> 00:02:33.878
(Video) Voice: There's too many people!
There's too many people!

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:42.340 --> 00:02:45.061
Voice: OK, he's having a seizure.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:59.023 --> 00:03:01.872
Voice: We need an ambulance.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:02.181 --> 00:03:04.198
Nonny de la Peña: So the man on the right,

00:03:04.222 --> 00:03:06.094
for him, he's walking around the body.

00:03:06.118 --> 00:03:08.815
For him, he's in the room with that body.

00:03:09.355 --> 00:03:11.172
Like, that guy is at his feet.

00:03:11.601 --> 00:03:13.808
And even though,
through his peripheral vision,

00:03:13.832 --> 00:03:15.903
he can see that he's in this lab space,

00:03:15.927 --> 00:03:20.140
he should be able to see
that he's not actually on the street,

00:03:20.164 --> 00:03:23.060
but he feels like he's there
with those people.

00:03:23.084 --> 00:03:25.094
He's very cautious not to step on this guy

00:03:25.118 --> 00:03:26.784
who isn't really there, right?

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:27.506 --> 00:03:30.609
So that piece ended up
going to Sundance in 2012,

00:03:30.633 --> 00:03:34.554
a kind of amazing thing,
and it was the first virtual reality film

00:03:34.578 --> 00:03:36.538
ever, basically.

00:03:37.062 --> 00:03:39.023
And when we went, I was really terrified.

00:03:39.047 --> 00:03:41.484
I didn't really know
how people were going to react

00:03:41.508 --> 00:03:42.897
and what was going to happen.

00:03:42.921 --> 00:03:45.818
And we showed up
with this duct-taped pair of goggles.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:45.842 --> 00:03:49.827
(Video) Oh, you're crying.
You're crying. Gina, you're crying.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:49.851 --> 00:03:52.571
So you can hear
the surprise in my voice, right?

00:03:52.595 --> 00:03:56.190
And this kind of reaction ended up being
the kind of reaction we saw

00:03:56.214 --> 00:03:58.984
over and over and over:

00:03:59.008 --> 00:04:02.714
people down on the ground
trying to comfort the seizure victim,

00:04:02.738 --> 00:04:04.658
trying to whisper something into his ear

00:04:04.682 --> 00:04:08.640
or in some way help,
even though they couldn't.

00:04:08.664 --> 00:04:11.348
And I had a lot of people
come out of that piece saying,

00:04:11.372 --> 00:04:14.096
"Oh my God, I was so frustrated.
I couldn't help the guy,"

00:04:14.120 --> 00:04:15.841
and take that back into their lives.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:16.999 --> 00:04:18.865
So after this piece was made,

00:04:20.198 --> 00:04:24.007
the dean of the cinema school at USC,
the University of Southern California,

00:04:24.031 --> 00:04:28.238
brought in the head of the World
Economic Forum to try "Hunger,"

00:04:28.262 --> 00:04:29.603
and he took off the goggles,

00:04:29.627 --> 00:04:32.667
and he commissioned
a piece about Syria on the spot.

00:04:32.691 --> 00:04:35.604
And I really wanted to do something
about Syrian refugee kids,

00:04:35.628 --> 00:04:39.920
because children have been the worst
affected by the Syrian civil war.

00:04:40.809 --> 00:04:44.767
I sent a team to the border of Iraq
to record material at refugee camps,

00:04:44.791 --> 00:04:47.942
basically an area I wouldn't
send a team now,

00:04:47.966 --> 00:04:50.434
as that's where ISIS is really operating.

00:04:50.458 --> 00:04:53.164
And then we also recreated a street scene

00:04:53.188 --> 00:04:56.711
in which a young girl is singing
and a bomb goes off.

00:04:57.340 --> 00:04:59.419
Now, when you're
in the middle of that scene

00:04:59.443 --> 00:05:01.997
and you hear those sounds,

00:05:02.021 --> 00:05:04.314
and you see the injured around you,

00:05:04.338 --> 00:05:07.338
it's an incredibly scary and real feeling.

00:05:07.362 --> 00:05:11.902
I've had individuals who have been
involved in real bombings tell me

00:05:11.926 --> 00:05:15.401
that it evokes the same kind of fear.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:16.211 --> 00:05:20.730
[The civil war in Syria may seem far away]

00:05:22.078 --> 00:05:28.344
[until you experience it yourself.]

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:29.062 --> 00:05:36.013
(Girl singing)

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:36.037 --> 00:05:38.815
(Explosion)

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:38.839 --> 00:05:43.076
[Project Syria]

00:05:43.988 --> 00:05:45.985
[A virtual reality experience]

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:46.653 --> 00:05:48.721
NP: We were then invited to take the piece

00:05:48.745 --> 00:05:50.799
to the Victoria and Albert
Museum in London.

00:05:50.823 --> 00:05:52.180
And it wasn't advertised.

00:05:52.204 --> 00:05:54.528
And we were put in this tapestry room.

00:05:54.552 --> 00:05:55.894
There was no press about it,

00:05:55.918 --> 00:05:59.655
so anybody who happened to walk
into the museum to visit it that day

00:05:59.679 --> 00:06:01.442
would see us with these crazy lights.

00:06:01.466 --> 00:06:05.141
You know, maybe they would want to see
the old storytelling of the tapestries.

00:06:05.165 --> 00:06:07.632
They were confronted
by our virtual reality cameras.

00:06:08.513 --> 00:06:11.640
But a lot of people tried it,
and over a five-day run

00:06:11.664 --> 00:06:16.204
we ended up with 54 pages
of guest book comments,

00:06:16.228 --> 00:06:18.564
and we were told by the curators there

00:06:18.588 --> 00:06:21.177
that they'd never seen such an outpouring.

00:06:21.201 --> 00:06:25.828
Things like, "It's so real,"
"Absolutely believable,"

00:06:25.852 --> 00:06:28.312
or, of course, the one
that I was excited about,

00:06:28.336 --> 00:06:31.185
"A real feeling as if you were
in the middle of something

00:06:31.209 --> 00:06:33.471
that you normally see on the TV news."

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:34.463 --> 00:06:37.939
So, it works, right? This stuff works.

00:06:38.297 --> 00:06:42.092
And it doesn't really matter
where you're from or what age you are --

00:06:42.116 --> 00:06:44.319
it's really evocative.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:44.343 --> 00:06:48.295
Now, don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying
that when you're in a piece

00:06:48.319 --> 00:06:51.199
you forget that you're here.

00:06:51.223 --> 00:06:54.398
But it turns out we can feel
like we're in two places at once.

00:06:54.422 --> 00:06:57.572
We can have what I call
this duality of presence,

00:06:57.596 --> 00:07:02.453
and I think that's what allows me
to tap into these feelings of empathy.

00:07:02.477 --> 00:07:03.628
Right?

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:04.041 --> 00:07:07.232
So that means, of course,

00:07:07.256 --> 00:07:12.151
that I have to be very cautious
about creating these pieces.

00:07:12.175 --> 00:07:16.437
I have to really follow
best journalistic practices

00:07:16.461 --> 00:07:18.596
and make sure that these powerful stories

00:07:18.620 --> 00:07:20.206
are built with integrity.

00:07:20.230 --> 00:07:22.603
If we don't capture
the material ourselves,

00:07:22.627 --> 00:07:27.595
we have to be extremely exacting

00:07:27.619 --> 00:07:30.920
about figuring out the provenance
and where did this stuff come from

00:07:30.944 --> 00:07:32.252
and is it authentic?

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:32.276 --> 00:07:33.633
Let me give you an example.

00:07:33.657 --> 00:07:36.594
With this Trayvon Martin case,
this is a guy, a kid,

00:07:36.618 --> 00:07:40.721
who was 17 years old and he bought
soda and a candy at a store,

00:07:40.745 --> 00:07:44.221
and on his way home he was tracked
by a neighborhood watchman

00:07:44.245 --> 00:07:47.110
named George Zimmerman
who ended up shooting and killing him.

00:07:47.657 --> 00:07:48.809
To make that piece,

00:07:48.833 --> 00:07:52.435
we got the architectural drawings
of the entire complex,

00:07:52.459 --> 00:07:57.228
and we rebuilt the entire scene
inside and out, based on those drawings.

00:07:57.252 --> 00:07:58.547
All of the action

00:07:58.571 --> 00:08:03.490
is informed by the real 911
recorded calls to the police.

00:08:04.411 --> 00:08:07.188
And interestingly, we broke
some news with this story.

00:08:07.212 --> 00:08:11.187
The forensic house that did the audio
reconstruction, Primeau Productions,

00:08:11.211 --> 00:08:13.157
they say that they would testify

00:08:13.181 --> 00:08:15.856
that George Zimmerman,
when he got out of the car,

00:08:15.880 --> 00:08:18.712
he cocked his gun before he went
to give chase to Martin.

NOTE Paragraph

00:08:20.013 --> 00:08:23.418
So you can see that
the basic tenets of journalism,

00:08:23.442 --> 00:08:25.315
they don't really change here, right?

00:08:25.339 --> 00:08:28.743
We're still following the same principles
that we would always.

00:08:28.767 --> 00:08:32.070
What is different is the sense
of being on scene,

00:08:32.094 --> 00:08:34.435
whether you're watching
a guy collapse from hunger

00:08:34.459 --> 00:08:36.944
or feeling like you're
in the middle of a bomb scene.

00:08:36.968 --> 00:08:41.916
And this is kind of what has driven me
forward with these pieces,

00:08:41.940 --> 00:08:43.663
and thinking about how to make them.

00:08:43.687 --> 00:08:47.882
We're trying to make this, obviously,
beyond the headset, more available.

00:08:47.906 --> 00:08:50.833
We're creating mobile pieces
like the Trayvon Martin piece.

00:08:50.857 --> 00:08:54.406
And these things have had impact.

00:08:54.430 --> 00:08:57.002
I've had Americans tell me
that they've donated,

00:08:57.026 --> 00:09:01.420
direct deductions from their bank account,
money to go to Syrian children refugees.

00:09:01.444 --> 00:09:03.777
And "Hunger in LA," well,
it's helped start

00:09:03.801 --> 00:09:06.230
a new form of doing journalism

00:09:06.254 --> 00:09:09.350
that I think is going to join
all the other normal platforms

00:09:09.374 --> 00:09:10.525
in the future.

NOTE Paragraph

00:09:10.549 --> 00:09:11.713
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:09:11.737 --> 00:09:14.149
(Applause)